Rare costume jewelry a boon for collectors
\nEl Paso Times<\/p>\n
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Can a woman ever have too many fabulous jewels?
\nThis is a question we put to Carole Tanenbaum, collector extraordinaire of antique and vintage costume jewelry.<\/p>\n
Too many? Consider: She has more than 3,500 pieces in her personal collection and more than 8,000 in her retail Carole Tanenbaum Vintage Collection. (Ogle them at www.truefaux.com.)<\/p>\n
Fabulous? Oh, yes. She has a particular love for bold, colorful jewelry from the 1950s, the sort of statement-making pieces that take a strong personality to carry off.<\/p>\n
Which Tanenbaum cheerfully agrees she has. “I love the ‘wow’ factor of ’50s jewelry,” she says by phone from her home in Toronto. “Like my personality is kind of bigger than life, so is my jewelry. I’m a very small person — I’m 5 feet — but I wouldn’t think twice about wearing three pins at one time or multiple necklaces.<\/p>\n
“I love the rhinestones, I love the color that was used and I love the scale of the ’50s.”<\/p>\n
Now, Tanenbaum is sharing her love of jewelry from all eras in “Fabulous Fakes: A Passion for Vintage Costume Jewelry.”<\/p>\n
“It’s a passion that I’ve had for more than 20 years,” she says. “I’ve worked very hard at trying to find the special pieces … really art pieces, objects of art rather than jewelry, in many cases.”<\/p>\n
“Fabulous Fakes” offers hundreds of full-color photos of jewelry from the late Victorian period through today, bracketed by Tanenbaum’s stories of how history and personalities became reflected in jewelry.<\/p>\n
One surprise in her research was to discover the extent of the feud between Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. You know Chanel: the creator of slim, simple suits that begged for multiple costume jewels to adorn them.<\/p>\n
As for “Schiap,” as she was called, she’s the designer who coined “shocking pink” as a name for her favorite color. She also dreamed up new ways for women to dress and adorn themselves with costume jewelry, but there the resemblance ends, Tanenbaum says.<\/p>\n
Chanel’s designs were classic and elegant, she writes. Schiap’s were influenced by surrealism and were bolder and more daring, with unusual colors of crystals often used in pear and octagonal shapes in the same piece. Those are much-sought by collectors today, Tanenbaum says.<\/p>\n
The photos and histories in ” Fabulous Fakes” are fun, but many readers will want to know how to start a collection themselves. Tanenbaum buys with an eye to condition first, and that’s her advice for new collectors. Look for pieces in excellent, original condition.<\/p>\n
As for eBay and Web sites such as www.rubylane.com and www.trocadero. com, among many others, Tanenbaum thinks they’re a boon to collectors — if buyers approach them with proper care.<\/p>\n
“When they go to an antique show, or when they go to the store, they can see eye-to-eye the person who is selling it to them,” she says. “They can examine the piece, they can ask questions about the piece, etc. Online, you know, it’s ‘buyer beware.’ ”<\/p>\n
If you’re looking for an area to collect that hasn’t been picked over, Tanenbaum suggests you look at Bakelite dress clips — not the much-faked Bakelite bangles.<\/p>\n
Or consider wooden figural jewelry from between the world wars that was handmade, not mass-produced. “It just hasn’t caught on yet. I love the pieces, and I think that one day they’ll be popular.”<\/p>\n
And if you have the money, buy present-day jewelry created for couture collections, such as Giorgio Armani or Miuccia Prada pieces. The jewelry is made in small quantities to create a fashion statement, so it’s often very original.<\/p>\n
“Though it’s expensive today,” she says, “it’ll be the Mona Lisas of tomorrow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rare costume jewelry a boon for collectors El Paso Times Can a woman ever have too many fabulous jewels? This is a question we put to Carole Tanenbaum, collector extraordinaire of antique and vintage costume jewelry. Too many? Consider: She has more than 3,500 pieces in her personal collection and more than 8,000 in her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[411],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n